THE SWEDES AND NORWEGIANS. 117 



were brought into association with foreign nations. The Swedish rovers have 

 doubtless left a less profound impression on history than the Danish and Norwegian 

 vikings. But this is due to the direction taken by their warlike excursions, which 

 did not bring them into contact with peoples of such high culture as the Franks 

 or Mediterranean nations. Their warlike deeds could be commemorated only in 

 the obscure traditions of Finns, Letts, "Wends, and the Slav tribes of the vast 

 Gurdarike, or E,ussia of our days. 



Foreigners could have had but a slight direct influence on the Scandinavian 

 race, for within historic times the peninsula has never been invaded by victorious 

 armies, if we except the short Russian expeditions of 1719 and 1809. Nor has 

 there been mvich peaceful immigration, and that mostly from Finland. Towards 

 the end of the seventeenth century Finnish peasantry began to cross the Gulf of 

 Bothnia and settle in Upper Jemtland, on the Norwegian frontier, where their 

 descendants still survive, intermingled with the surrounding Swedish populations. 

 Other Finnish colonies are found in the northern provinces. Religious persecutions 

 also contributed in a small degree to the peopling of the land. At the end of the 

 sixteenth century some hundreds of Walloon workmen, at the invitation of a Dutch 

 owner of mines, took refuge in Sweden, settling mainly in the village of Osterby, 

 near the Dannemora mines. Their descendants, nearly all of a brown complexion, 

 have retained the traces of their descent, and carefully preserve the spelling of 

 their French names. Since then several other French exiles have sought homes 

 in Sweden ; but their influence has been, purely local, and the zeal with which 

 the language of Racine has been studied and Paris fashions imitated on the Baltic 

 shores must rather be attributed to a certain natural sympathy between the two 

 nations. The Swedes are fond of calling themselves the " French of the North," 

 and their social ways, courtes}-, and good taste certainly entitle them to the name. 



The Norwegians, on the other hand, are the "English of Scandinavia." From 

 over the seas their gaze is fixed on the British Isles, with which their chief com- 

 mercial intercourse is carried on, and whence come their most numerous foreign 

 visitors. They are in general distinguished rather by strength and tenacity of 

 will than by liveliness or pliability. Their resolutions are formed slowly, but what 

 they will they carry through. Amongst them mysticism seems more prevalent 

 than in Sweden, which is yet the native land of Swedenborg. 



The inhabitants of Scandinavia speak various languages, all, however, derived 

 from the old Norrœna, or Norse tongue of the Runic inscriptions. Hence their 

 close afiinity and imperceptible blendings, the Scanian, for instance, serving as 

 the connecting link between Swedish and Danish. The standard Swedish, which 

 is simply the cultivated dialect of the Stockholm district, as Danish is that of the 

 Copenhagen district, is an harmonious language, full of assonances, and, thanks to 

 its greater treasure of archaic terms, more original than its southern sister. But 

 amongst the local dialects there are others of still more ancient type, notably the 

 Dalecarlian, the Gottish of Gotland, and those still current beyond the frontiers 

 of the present Sweden, in parts of Finland and the islands on the Esthonian coast. 



The literary language of Norway is simply the Danish with a few local words 



